


limerence and love

by AStrangeDaze (TerraRising)



Category: NU'EST, Produce 101 (TV), Wanna One (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Gen, M/M, Soulmate-Identifying Marks
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-30
Updated: 2018-12-30
Packaged: 2019-09-29 21:36:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,615
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17211389
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TerraRising/pseuds/AStrangeDaze
Summary: The clock strikes midnight and something once called hope dies inside.





	limerence and love

**Author's Note:**

  * For [ayelashes](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ayelashes/gifts).



> A super duper delayed gift for Maddie who wanted angst with a happy ending (?)

It’s almost midnight.

 

He’s standing in the shower, skin that was bright red once under the unrelenting spray softening to a soft pink now that the temperature was cooling. He doesn’t know how long he’s been lost in thought under the spray, barely even notices that he’s shivering now. It’s almost midnight.

 

Or is it…..his mind wanders dangerously even as his breath catches.

 

Is it after midnight now?

 

He mindlessly reaches over to crank the knob of the shower higher, to turn the heat up. It doesn’t budge and he stands there while the tepid water chills ice cold.

 

“Seongwoo-ah?”

 

There’s a knock on the washroom door as the voice calls out his name but he doesn’t respond.

The side of his neck _aches_ and he clamps a hand over it hastily though the action does nothing to allieviate the phantom sensation. What it does do though is bare the mark on the underside of his forearm close to his elbow and he flinches violently at the sight.

 

“Seongwoo-ah, are you okay? You’ve been in there for almost an hour now.”

 

He stares at his own skin as if it was a foreign thing, unreachable to the voice beyond the door, the script stares back at him mockingly and he fights back the urge to open his mouth and tear the offending skin off with his teeth.

 

“Ong Seongwoo, if you don’t answer me this instant I’m kicking the door down.”

 

He keeps his silence for another five seconds and regrets it the next moment later when the door bursts open and an incensed Hwang Minhyun storms into the muggy washroom, nearly ripping the shower curtain off the rod in his haste to push it aside and glare at Seongwoo. His friend reaches in and turns off the shower before throwing a towel at the stunned Seongwoo who catches the towel automatically.

 

“W-what?”

 

“ _Tsk_ ,” Minhyun huffs when Seongwoo stands there unmoving still, wrapping the towel around his shoulders and then hissing, pulling him out of the shower with new urgency, “Shit, Seong-ah, you’re freezing, what are you doing to yourself?”

 

“I, I didn’t-”

 

“Were you trying to give yourself hypothermia?” Minhyun continues to scold, throwing another towel over his head and rubbing the limp strands on his head dry with a single-minded determination, “Did you stand under cold water for the whole hour? You idiot!”

 

“I, an hour you said?” Seongwoo lets himself be manhandled, feeling lost even as Minhyun clucks over him, prodding at him to pull his pajamas on and then dragging him out of the washroom to the living room where he’s shoved onto the couch and wrapped in a spare throw until only his nose peaks out.

 

“Here.”

 

Seongwoo accepts the mug of tea shoved at him automatically, cradling the almost scorching porcelain between his palms and taking a sip when Minhyun shoots him a pointed look.

 

“Thanks,” he mumbles against the rim, eyes downcast, shifting to the side to make room for Minhyun who plops himself down with absolutely none of the grace he normally has, jostling Seongwoo who hissed when the tea sloshed unto his fingers.

 

“Oops! Sorry, sorry,” Minhyun leaned over to mop up the excess liquid with the sleeve of his hoodie, one of the oversized ones that Jonghyun favoured and that Minhyun was forever stealing just to get a rise out of his boyfriend, “okay, you ready to talk now?”

 

“………..there’s nothing to talk about.”

 

“Pull the other one, Seong-ah. You can lie to other people but you can’t lie to me.”

 

“I said it’s nothing.”

 

Minhyun snorts, running a hand through his hair in mild exasperation, “‘Nothing’ doesn’t leave you wandering around looking like death warmed over and then trying to turn yourself into a human icicle in the shower. You can lie to other people, _but you can’t lie to me_. What is it?”

 

Seongwoo curls in on himself, setting the mug on the table and pushing it away as if the motion could put distance between himself and Minhyun. Minhyun sits and waits, letting the silence soak into both their bones, the subtle mullish set to his jaw letting Seongwoo know that his friend was willing to out stubborn him no matter what it takes and he groans because Minhyun knows him too well to back down and he knows Minhyun too well to expect avoidance to work. He curses Jonghyun under his breath, suddenly missing the days when Minhyun’s personality was less tempered, when he could rile the other man up enough that he would forget he had been trying to force a concession out of Seongwoo, but that only brought his thoughts hurtling down a path he had no intentions of treading again and he bit his lip harshly until the pain jolts him back.

 

Minhyun stares at him steadily still before sighing, reaching over to fish Seongwoo’s hand out of the mess of blankets, pushing his own sleeve back until the matching mark on his forearm was bared for the world to see.

 

“It’s about this, isn’t it?”

 

Seongwoo swallows heavily and looks away but that’s all the confirmation that Minhyun needs and he drops Seongwoo’s arm with a pained look.

 

“Seongwoo-ah-”

 

“Don’t you dare apologize,” he croaks out even though it feels like his throat is closing up.

 

“I wasn’t-”

 

“You can lie to other people, but you can’t lie to me,” Seongwoo parrots back at him with a bitter fractured thing of a smile on his face, “You were lucky and I was not, Minhyun-ah, it’s fine. I’ve made my peace with it.”

 

Minhyun huffs out a laugh, rubbing at his mark absently. “Doesn’t mean I can’t still feel sorry. I never, of every person, I never meant to be the reason why you hurt, Seongwoo.”

 

“I said it’s _not your fault_ ,” Seongwoo bites out, his voice rising in volume involuntarily, “Don’t apologize because the universe dealt me a bad hand. Don’t apologize for-”

 

He cuts himself off, exhaling noisily through his nose as his lips twisted in irritation, Minhyun’s outstretched arm meant to console hanging awkwardly in the space between them.

 

_Don’t apologize for having what I so badly want._

 

“Right, right,” Minhyun looks on the verge of pulling back before he steels himself, reaching over to pull Seongwoo into a hug instead and Seongwoo is only able to hang on to his reluctance for a few moments before the fight falls out from him and he hides his face against Minhyun’s shoulder instead.

 

He vaguely registers Jonghyun shuffling out of their room, a low exchange between the two before Jonghyun pets Seongwoo’s hair lightly and retreats politely. Part of Seongwoo hates Jonghyun just a little bit for always being so _good_ , so accepting even when having to share his soulmate with another person whose name was etched into Minhyun’s skin, but a larger part of him is grateful that Jonghyun is so wonderful because Minhyun deserved the world even if it could never be Seongwoo.

 

“It’s December 10th now,” he offers instead, murmuring the words into skin damp with tears he couldn’t recall shedding.

 

“It is,” Minhyun confirms softly, feeling his heart drop when he realizes the implications.

 

“He’s twenty one now,” Seongwoo laughs bitterly, “He’s going to leave me.”

 

“You don’t know that,” Minhyun tries to soothe only for Seongwoo to jerk backwards out of his grip, a wounded noise in the back of his throat.

 

“But I do. I do. He’s not mine,” the words sound like a death sentence with the weight and finality of the last nail to be hammered into a coffin, “he’s not mine, no one is mine.”

 

“Do _not_ —”

 

“Don’t what? Speak the truth?”

 

“ _I_ am your’s!”

 

“You’re not, you’re his!” he gestures wildly towards the closed door to the room Minhyun shares with Jonghyun despite knowing full well that Jonghyun can hear him and was definitely listening, “You’ve got him and you’re happy, you don’t know what it’s like to be left behind! You don’t know what if feels like knowing that the one person who was supposed to be your’s _isn’t,_ even though his name is stamped across your _fucking arm,_ because he’s got someone else written across his heart! You’re mine but you were never mine to keep, don’t you understand, Hwang Minhyun?”

 

The tension in the room is palpable now and Seongwoo doesn’t know when he got up and put the dining table between himself and Minhyun but suddenly they’re miles apart and his lower lip is quivering and Minhyun isn’t saying anything, only watching in horror as ugly things fall from Seongwoo’s lips.

 

“But I got over it! Or at least I tried, by god, I tried because he makes you so happy and I wanted you to be happy because then at least one of us would be. I smiled even though I wanted to stab you both in the face sometimes the first few months he moved in with us and every morning you would smile at him like he hung the goddamn moon in the sky. Like I wouldn’t have actually gone and plucked the moon from the sky for you if you would just look at me in the same way because even if you never loved me, I did. _I did._ I clenched my teeth so hard I thought they were going to shatter some days but it was worth it because you were happy and that was enough. I could heal, and you were happy. That was enough.

 

“But then I was stupid. I was finally better and then I went and fell in love with someone else even though I knew he wasn’t going to be mine either but he made me want to try _so badly_ to pretend that he _could be_ mine. But he’s _not_ , Minhyun, he’s **_not,_ ** just like you aren’t and now it’s past midnight and I’m can’t even _look_ at my phone. It’s been ringing but I couldn’t pick up the damn call because I’m _terrified_ of what he has to tell me so I went and hid in the washroom like a coward instead, is that what you wanted to hear?

 

“Is that what you wanted to talk about?”

 

“No. No I don’t…..Seongwoo-ah, why didn’t you ever say anything?”

 

Seongwoo feels something inside his chest, some measure of twisted satisfaction unfurling at the distressed look on Minhyun’s face because he _deserves_ to feel at least an iota of the pain that Seongwoo had been wordlessly shouldering.  “What was there to say? Everyone who looks at me and then sees you and Jonghyun looks back at me with pity, like I’m _broken_ . I’m one of the unfortunate ones, Minhyun. The ones in stories parents tell at night to scare their children into behaving. I’m one of those who got fucked over by fate, who probably did something in their past life so bad they didn’t _deserve_ a happy ending. I might as well be a Blank, Minhyun-ah, that might have been easier.”

 

He stops when he hears the choked cry escape Minhyun’s throat, sees the utterly incensed look written on his best friend’s face as he strides over and forces Seongwoo to step back until his back hits a wall, framing his face with his hands and forcing Seongwoo to look him in the eyes. “No,” the normally collected man growls out, lips peeled back and teeth barred, “Don’t you dare say you’d rather be a Blank, Ong Seongwoo.”

 

“It-”

 

“I am wearing your name on my arm just like you’re wearing mine. You’re as much my other half as Jonghyun is, how could you say that? How could you say that you don’t want to be-”

 

“Because it _hurts_ , Min,” Seongwoo’s broken voice cuts clean through the fury Minhyun had been feeling, “It hurts carrying your mark when I couldn’t have you. It hurts because if you were never going to be mine, then why can’t the name I carry be his? Why couldn’t I have him instead? Why did the universe put him in my life, let me have that hope that I could have someone to love and to keep, only to do _this_? Why is everyone I love destined to walk away from me?”

 

“Seongwoo-ah-”

 

“I love him! I love him so much, Min. I just- I, he’s all that I want. Just this one thing. Just him. But I’ve lost him too, he’s not mine to have. _Why aren’t I ever enough?_ ”

 

He crumbles against Minhyun’s chest, sobbing even as his best friend craddles his limp form in his arms, endless platitudes falling from his lips as he looks on helplessly while Seongwoo falls apart in front of him. His bedroom door creeks open and Jonghyun makes his way over, face pinched with worry. The shorter man hesitates for a moment, wondering if his touch was going to be unwelcome, before laying a careful hand on Seongwoo’s shoulders, wincing at how hard the other man was shaking.

 

“Is he going to be okay?”

 

“I don’t know,” Minhyun offers weakly, his own voice breaking under the barrage of emotions, “I really don’t know. I can’t, Jonghyun-ah, he was hurting like this for so long, how could I not have known?”

 

“It’s not your fault,” Jonghyun says soothingly.

 

“But it is, _it is_ ,” Minhyun insisted, “I did this to him.”

 

“Let’s get him into bed first,” Jonghyun reasons, slipping an arm through the crook of Seongwoo’s elbow to help bear his weight, “Seongwoo-ah, can you stand?”

 

The other man nods weakly, letting the two of them manouver him until he’s supported under the arms by them both. He takes two steps and then awkwardly disengages his arm from where it was rested around Minhyun, flinging his arms around Jonghyun’s shoulders and hugging the shorter man fiercely.

 

“Seong?”

 

“I’m sorry,” he murmurs into the top of Jonghyun’s head, “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean- I like you a lot, Jong-ah, you’re a great person and an amazing friend. Please don’t hate me, I’m sorry.”

 

Jonghyun snorts from where his nose is awkwardly jammed into Seongwoo’s collarbone and wraps the other man in a hug in return. “Don’t be silly, I don’t hate you. I know you didn’t mean it in a bad way, and it was a difficult situation for all of us. Thank you for staying and for giving me a chance, you’re a friend that I really treasure, Seong-ah. Please don’t be sad because of me.”

 

Seongwoo lets out a wet laugh even as he clings tighter, letting his touch say the words choked in his throat instead. Before Minhyun or Jonghyun can say anything further, the doorbell starts ringing, followed by pounding on the door.

 

"Who-" Minhyun's brows are furrowed as he glances in the direction of the door.

 

"Seongwoo hyung!" the muffled voice beyond the door calls, "Hyung, open the door! I know you're in there! Open the door!"

 

Seongwoo pales even further if that were possible, shrinking backwards into Jonghyun's arms, "No."

 

"Seongwoo-ah...." Jonghyun glances at him with worry.

 

"No, I don't, I can't," he gibbers, "Tell him to leave."

 

"SEONGWOO!" the pounding gets louder and Minhyun and Jonghyun glance at each other nervously as the door shakes under the force of the other person's insistence, "OPEN THE DOOR!!"

 

Seongwoo turns tail and runs into the dubious safety of his room and Minhyun sighs before making an executive decision to unlock the door.

 

"Seong-"

 

"I need you to calm down," Minhyun orders bluntly, watching as Daniel freezes under his glare, "It's almost one in the morning and you're disturbing the neighbours. More than that, you're scaring Seongwoo."

 

"Where is he?" the younger man looks wrecked, eyes darting around wildly to try and catch a glimpse of Seongwoo.

 

"He's not in a good place right now," Minhyun cautions, "it might be best for you to come back tomorrow."

 

Daniel makes a wounded noise, looking like he has half a mind to push past Minhyun before he thinks better of it. "He's not picking up his phone,"  he says instead, looking so devastated that Minhyun's heart goes out to him in that moment, "I've been calling and calling but he won't pick up. I just, please, I just want to make sure that he's alright. I just need to see him, just for a second, just to make sure he's okay."

 

It takes him a while but eventually Minhyun steps back to let Daniel in. "He's in his room," he sighs, Daniel steps throughwith a grateful look, "you know where that is. Just, Niel-ah?"

 

Daniel pauses and looks back curiously, skidding down the hall a bit with his momentum and Minhyun almost wants to laugh. "Don't hurt him," he says uselessly instead and Daniel shakes his head so violently he wouldn't be surprised if it fell clean off.

 

"Never ever ever! I promise I won't, thank you for letting me in!" he half-shouts before jogging towards Seongwoo's room, giving an awkward bow towards Jonghyun in acknowledgement.

 

"Wait!" Jonghyun calls out and then runs towards the kitchen, coming back with a spare key and a rueful look on his face as he hands it to Daniel, "Don't make us regret this," he warns.

 

"I won't," the younger man accepts the key as if it were a treasure, "thank you. For trusting me, for caring for him."

 

"The first we're doing out of good faith," Minhyun says as he moves to stand beside his boyfriend, "the second.... Is never going to change."

 

Daniel glances towards Minhyun's bared arm and nods decisively. "I know," he says before hurrying to his destination and knocking lightly, "Hyung?"

 

Something thumps against the door, a dull, soft sound, and Daniel sighs, trying the door knob and then going for the key.

 

"I'm coming in hyung," he announces as the lock clicks open, yelping as he ducks another pillow thrown his way.

 

"I don't want to see you!" they can hear Seongwoo yell before the door clicks shut behind Daniel.

 

"Do you think we made the right choice?" Minhyun asks quietly, leaning against Jonghyun tiredly.

 

The room is silent now and Jonghyun laces their fingers together with a gentle smile, "They're going to be just fine."  


 

* * *

 

 

"Seongwoo-ah," Daniel calls softly, dropping the honorifics now that they're alone.

 

He approaches cautiously; Seongwoo is curled up in a corner of his bed, back towards Daniel, stubbornly ignoring him. He sits down on the bed gingerly, scooting closer until he can lay a hand on Seongwoo's shoulder. "Seongwoo," he calls again.

 

"Go away," comes the mumbled reply, "if you're going to leave then just leave, why come all this way to tell me?"

 

"What? I'm not, who said I'm leaving you?!" he coaxes Seongwoo's head out from between his arms, "Darling when did I ever say I'm leaving you?"

 

"Aren't you going to?" Seongwoo shoots back, glaring through red and puffy eyes that make Daniel's heart ache, "You have your soulmate now, what do you still need me for?"

 

"I don't want them," Daniel declares resolutely, watching the shock splash across Seongwoo's face and sink into his skin.

 

"W-what did you say?" he croaks.

 

"I said, I don't want them," Daniel catches Seongwoo's gaze and then holds it, "Ong Seongwoo, I don't care what the world says or what the fates try to tell me, to tell us. You're the only one that I want, and no name on my skin is going to change that."

 

"I, you," Seongwoo splutters, looking as if Daniel had clubbed him over the head, "but your soulmate."

 

"Isn't you," Daniel pushes on even though the confirmation makes Seongwoo flinch violently, "but you are the one I chose. I am the one you chose to love. And Seongwoo-ah, isn't that, doesn't that mean more than a name scrawled across skin?"

 

He shifts closer, taking both of Seongwoo's hands in his, "We choose each other, regardless of fate, despite of it even! We chose to love each other, and if we can make this choice, then we can choose to stay together no matter what tells us otherwise. Because I love you more than some faceless stranger, because I want it to be you and not them.

 

"Didn't you choose to love me despite the fact that someone else's name is on your arm? Why are you bowing to fate now?"

 

Seongwoo stares back into Daniel's earnest eyes, clutching his hands close. "You chose me," he confirms weakly, licking dry lips at Daniel's nod, "you want to stay with me."

 

"Yes, do you?"

 

"I," Seongwoo gives a wild, startled laugh, "of course I do! I do!"

 

He catapults forwards into Daniel, arms wrapping around him as words fail to convey his relief, and Daniel clutches him back just as tightly.

 

"You won't regret it?" Seongwoo murmurs later, comfortable in Daniel's arms, playing with his fingers absently.

 

"I won't," Daniel days resolutely.

 

"Are you sure?"

 

"Soulmates work out because they choose to put in the effort," Daniel says, nudging the back of Seongwoo's head with his nose fondly, "there's no magic that makes everything effortless. They still fight, still get mad, are still unhappy sometimes. I don't think we'll lose out to any of them."

 

Seongwoo turns until he can face Daniel, his eyes are still a little puffy from crying earlier but the brilliance of his smile has them crinkled into little half-moon crescents. "Thank you for choosing me," he whispers sincerely as if it were some secret, leaning his forehead against Daniel's, "thank you for letting me be enough."

 

"You're more than enough," Daniel smiles back, voice a little choked up with emotion, "you're my love by choice. And that means everything."

 

 

 


End file.
